Theme and Variation in Community Policing

Community policing appears to be increasingly popular around the globe. Recent research in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia indicates that community policing is a coherent concept grounded on the notion that, together, police and public are more effective and more humane coproducers of safety and public order than are the police alone. Programmatic elements constituting community policing include community-based crime prevention, reorientation of patrol to stress nonemergency service, increased accountability to the public, decentralization of command, and sometimes, civilianization. "Community policing" does not always achieve these unifying elements. Impediments to the development of community policing include norms grounded in traditional notions of the police role, police needs to react to emergencies, resource limitations, traditional assumptions about patrol strategies, assessment problems, customary public expectations of the police role, and bureaucratic isolation of community programs within the police department. Despite the obstacles, the community-policing movement is likely to grow because of benefits to the public from enhanced crime prevention and police accountability and to the police from increased legitimation through consensus building with the public, increased morale, and enhanced career opportunities.